Shame on the WHO

Today, workers at the headquarters of the World Health Organisation in Geneva will stage an unprecedented one-hour strike to protest the rules surrounding temporary contracts. The director's response? Threaten to fire them. I'm unsure of the legal situation - whether the WHO employees in question are covered under Swiss law (which forbids retalitory action against strikers), or in a legal grey zone where the UN gets to make up its own rules - but regardless, this threat is deeply incompatible with the goals and values of the United Nations. The UN's core human rights documents (and specifically the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) affirm a fundamental right of workers to strike in pursuit of their interests, as well as a right to "just and favourable conditions of work". And the UN and its subsidiary bodies, of all people, should strive to realise those rights - not trample them underfoot.